Frank Nitti

Frank Nitti (27 January 1886-19 March 1943) was boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1931 to 1943, succeeding Al Capone and preceding Paul Ricca. He was nicknamed "The Enforcer", and he served as Capone's right-hand man before becoming his handpicked successor as boss. He shot himself in 1943 while drunk and despondent, as he feared that he would be sent back to prison due to an investigation of his extortion of Hollywood film studios.

Biography
Francesco Raffaele Nitto was born in Angri, Campania, Italy in 1886, a first cousin of Al Capone. He immigrated to the United States with the rest of his family in 1893 at the age of seven, and the family first settled at 113 Navy Street in Brooklyn, New York City. Nitti became an associate of Capone and his brothers' Navy Street Boys gang, and he moved to Chicago in 1913 and became a barber and made the acquaintance of gangster Dean O'Banion. In 1918, he settled at 1914 South Halsted Street in Chicago with his wife, and he came to run Capone's liquor smuggling and distribution operation, importing Canadian whiskey and selling it through a network of speakeasies in Chicago. In 1929, while Capone was in prison, he made Nitti one of three co-leaders of the Chicago Outfit, and he was nicknamed "the Enforcer". In 1931, both Nitti and Capone were convicted of tax evasion and sent to prison, but Nitti only served 18 months, while Capone served 11 years. When Nitti was released in 1932, he became the new boss of the Chicago Outfit, taking over from acting boss Paul Ricca. On 19 December 1932, a team of CPD officers raided his offices and shot him several times in the back, while one of the officers non-lethally shot himself in the leg to make it look as if the officers had acted in self-defense. Nitti survived the shooting and was acquitted of attempted murder in February 1933, while the officers who had led the conspiracy were fired from the police force and fined. In 1943, however, Nitti was investigated for extorting the Hollywood film industry, and the claustrophobic Nitti dreaded the idea of returning to prison. On 19 March 1943, Nitti went on a walk to the rail yards of Riverside, Illinois as his second wife attended church, and he got drunk and attempted to shoot himself. He succeeded in shooting himself twice in the head, and the police judged that he was temporarily insane and despondent when he had committed suicide.